


All I Want

by rosalynbair



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, billy misses reader a lot, mentions of abuse, promise rings, they're so hopeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 14:51:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14813492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosalynbair/pseuds/rosalynbair
Summary: You and Billy had been high school sweethearts. Even when you move away and he moves to Indiana, you’re promised to each other. After months of not talking, Billy takes it into his own hands to visit you.





	All I Want

Tangled blonde hair and glazed blue eyes stared back at Billy Hargrove from the mirror. The stinging red mark on his right cheek taunting him with loud screams that brought the tears in his eyes to overflow, flowing down his cheeks and onto the already damp wash cloth that he held in front of him. 

The faint vibrato of his father carrying on from the living room catches Billy’s ears, echoing his mistakes and self hatred to his step mother. A simple few minutes was all it had taken for Neil to unleash his anger and disappointment onto the eighteen-year-old. A few minutes late pulling into the driveway, the pressure of the small brunette’s lips still on his own lips and cheek which had since been replaced by the harsh sting of Neil Hargrove’s hand. 

The cloth was cold against his hot face, the sting oozing away as Billy put pressure onto his cheek. Small droplets of water escaped the cloth, trailing down his jaw before falling onto the revealed portion of his chest from where he had undone a few of the buttons of his shirt. 

His gaze was blurred as he pulled the cloth away from his face, the sting returning in moments along with the coldness of the air hitting the damp skin. Billy’s weak sniff sounded in his room, over the low volume from his radio that rested on his dresser. His calloused hands wiped the tears away from his eyes, blinking rapidly for a few seconds to clear his eyes of the signs of his weakness.

His eyes moved away from his own reflection to a polaroid that was stuck in the frame of the mirror, the white edges fading into a creamy yellow due to exposure to the elements from Billy’s car and wallet. With the aging of the photo, he had long since stopped carrying it with him, deciding to keep it safe in his bedroom where nothing could harm the photo. 

The captured moment had been treasured by Billy since he was sixteen. Long before he had grown out his hair or gained the hardness to his expression.   
Vibrant colours assaulted Billy’s eyes as he stared at the laughing teenager he once was. His blonde hair messy and lightened under the California sun, blue eyes bright as he stared at the camera, almost matching the blue to the brand new Camaro he leaned against. 

You were in his arms. You, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, were wrapped up in his arm with his jean jacket covering your arms and cropping at your hips. The bright red and white of your cheerleading uniform contrasted the beach behind the car, making you stand out in the picture. 

You were leaning against Billy, not paying attention to the camera – or even noticing it, as you stared at Billy. The corners of your eyes crinkled as you laughed, pink lips revealing your teeth while your hair blew around your face as it escaped the red scrunchie you had pulled it up into for the football game you had just left. 

Billy could recall each freckle on your face, each laugh line etched into your skin, if he thought hard enough. He could remember each mole on your arm and each blackhead that dotted your nose or each scar on your body from a childhood of running through the coral and clam filled ocean and climbing fences with your brother. 

You had been the one good thing in Billy Hargrove’s life. The light from the moon in an endless night. You had been loved by all who met you, including his biological mother. He had found on more than one occasion you going out to breakfast with her. You had brought a smile to her face when things had started getting rough with Neil, the one who soothed her tears in the car when she left the house to drive you and Billy to school. 

His life fell apart when you moved away. No one would have guessed that you had family issues if they hadn’t known you like Billy had. With a messy and expensive divorce between your parents, you ended up on the other side of the country with your mom within days of the final divorce papers. 

~

“Why do you have to go?” Billy snaps, tugging his slender fingers through the mop on his head. 

His shirt rode up his lean torso with the movement, earring swinging and glinting under the low light of the sunset behind him. His eyes gleaming with frustrated tears. 

“She’s my mom, Billy.” You reply, sitting on the hood of his car with your legs resting on the front bumper. “She needs me.”

“I’m your boyfriend.” He responds, turning to face you fully. “I need you.”

You release a sigh, reaching up to rest your cheek on your hand. You had always known that this would be difficult. Leaving Billy was the last thing you wanted to do. You needed him as much as he needed you. With four years together, you had been almost inseparable for all of high school. 

“I know Billy. But you know I’ll come back.” You tell him, catching his eye before he turned away again. “We’ve got a life we’re gonna start together. But right now, my mom needs me. Anthony already chose dad, and they’re staying here. Mom wants to go back to Maine to be with her family.”

Billy lets out a frustrated sigh. “Promise you’ll come back? You won’t just forget about me?”

“Now how could I ever forget you William Hargrove?” You ask with a laugh lacing the words. “You’re everything to me.”

You open your arms, Billy stepping between your legs as you wrap your arms around him. You rest your head against his chest, resting your eyes as you try to memorize the beat of his heart.

~

The picture was in his hand as he laid in his unmade bed. Billy’s eyes brimming with tears once more, but no longer from the pain that had faded from his skin. But rather from the heart ache that tore through his chest and the longing that raced through his veins. 

He turns the photo between his fingers, your slanted yet loopy writing coating the back in black pen. 

I love you Billy Hargrove. I promise you that I’ll come back home to you where we can start our little life together in California. Until then, here’s my favourite picture of us from the ’83 pep rally game. The day we promised that forever was ours. XO, Y/N.

~

The air was cold against your bare limbs despite the usually muggy air that rested around California. Your skirt flew and twirled around your thighs as you moved in a routine movement you had memorized in your freshman year. 

Loud yells echoed throughout the football field in response to the few girls you were in formation with, cheering out the standard pump up call you recited to the student body of Santa Monica High. 

The cheering never stopped, not even as the pep rally came to a close. Students filing out of the bleachers into the field for the after party that the teachers refused to chaperone for legal purposes. You followed the wave of students, searching for your favorite boy. 

Your arms wrapped around him when he came into arms reach. Curling your limbs under the warmth of his jacket. A loud chuckle falls from his lips, his own arms caging you against his body. Your face raises upwards, lips slightly puckered and begging for a kiss.

His lips had always been soft – Billy would never admit to the chap stick that resided in the cup holder of his car to being his. He always told people that you had left it there. – When you pulled away, you gave him a smile, eyes twinkling at his. 

“Oh so peppy.” Billy teases, letting a hand trail down your side to grip at your bottom, tugging at the light fabric of your skirt. “As usual.”

“As usual.” You repeat, pushing his hand away from your ass as you kiss his jaw, “I’m cold.”

“Is that you asking for my jacket?” He asks, an eyebrow quirked. 

“It’s me telling you to give it to me.” You say with a grin. 

With a roll of his eyes and a huff, you were wrapped in the warm denim that smelled like a signature Billy Hargrove. Spearmint, cologne and smoke. Billy wishes he could memorize the smile on your face, to have it forever in his mind. 

His hand takes yours, tugging you into the school parking lot to his car. 

A short drive away was the pier, meeting up with a few friends you had accumulated over the years. The beach was loud against the shore and pier. Water crashing roughly against the fading wood. 

You climb out of the Camaro, reaching to tug your skirt down properly after it rode too far up your thighs in the car. The cool air hits you once more, the breeze coming up from the water praying mist along your skin. 

You shove your hands into the pockets of Billy’s jackets, pushing aside the pack of cigarettes and the lighter that he kept there. Your fingers brush against a smooth, circular item in the left pocket. Your brows furrow as you look over to Billy getting out of the car. With one look over at you, he gives a simple wink.   
You pull a silver ring out of the pocket. Sterling silver and a clearly fake diamond resting in the band. You stare at Billy, holding it up with a raised eyebrow.   
Billy gives a grin, walking around to the front of the car and hopping up onto the hood. “You weren’t supposed to find that yet.” He tells you, bringing you close against his body, lips pressing against your temple. 

You turn your head to face him with a smile, turning your head upwards ever so slightly to capture his lips with yours. When you pulled away from the small kiss, Billy takes the ring from your grip, holding it up to your face.

“I love you.” He tells you seriously. “And I want you to have a ring on your finger. To remind you that I’m here, and I’m going to be here when you get back to California.”

He slides the ring onto your fourth finger of your left hand, watching as you hold out your hand in front of you to get the full effect of the promise ring that was now on your hand. The smile that forms on your face catches Billy off guard. Your teeth barred with your tongue peaking out ever so slightly between your teeth. Your eyes were crinkled at the corners and your iris’ were shining under the fading daylight. 

With a quick movement, you were pulling a chain out from between your breasts. There was an old silver ring that was dangling on it. You had bought it a few years ago when you went to a Portland flea market. It had very rarely left it’s spot between your breasts. But, here it was now, being pushed onto Billy’s fourth finger. Matching yours.

“It looks good on you.” You tell him sweetly, holding his hand with your thumb tracing and spinning the ring on his finger. “I don’t need it anymore. I only had it to remind me of Portland. But now I want you to wear it to remind you of me. Until I come back.”

Billy nods, his arms wrapping around you once more. You smile at him, skirt and hair blowing as the breeze picked up. “I’m gonna love you forever.” You tell him.

“That’s a long time, princess.” He responds, staring down at your bright eyes and large smile.

“Smile!” A friend calls, Billy turning his head with a grin already on his face.

The small flash from the small camera blinded him momentarily, but with your lips against his cheek, he hadn’t cared at all.

~

Tears were falling from the corners of Billy’s eyes, landing down into his hair and onto the dirty pillow beneath his head. 

The photo was in his hand, eyes trained on your laughing face. He missed you. He longed for you.

He hadn’t heard your voice in months at this point. The last time you had spoken to him was a month before he moved to Indiana. It wasn’t your fault though. Billy had never given you the new phone number to the Hargrove household.

His life had fallen apart after you left. His mother had finally left and filed for a divorce. And although she had offered Billy a place in her life, he had decided to stay with his father, since he was staying in California and his mother was leaving the state. He wanted to be in California, waiting for you when you got back.

He failed his eleventh year of school, too focused on how angry Neil had become at home. How horrible Susan was when she moved into the home Billy had grown up in. Susan had thrown his entire life off balance. 

When they had announced that they were moving to Indiana, Billy went kicking and screaming. He didn’t want to leave California. He needed to stay and wait for you. You were going to come back, and he was going to be working in a mechanics shop. He was going to have a small apartment for the both of you.

That was all thrown out the moment he stepped into Hawkins. 

His ring never left his finger. Your school photo stayed in his night stand. Your memory stayed with him every day. There was no doubt that you would be disappointed in him if you ever saw the way he acted, the girls he had in his bed or in the front seat of his car. You would scold him for the way he treated Max. You would tell him that none of this was her fault, that she was just like him in this entire situation. She was just someone who had been dragged into a new life, just like him. 

Billy missed you. 

Despite the promise of forever and always, he still found himself in the arms of other women to try to ease the longing he had for you. 

Billy sets the photo down onto his nightstand, swinging himself upwards to sit up on the creaking bed. His eyes scanned the room before landing on a map book he had used to drive to Indiana during the move. 

He takes it off the dresser, flipping through the index to find Indiana and Maine. He was slowly mapping the way to Maine, recalling from memory which neighbourhood was yours. He kept the book open as he reached to grab his school bag, flipping it upside down to drop the few school supplies he actually carried out of it. 

His movements were quick as he moved around his room, finding a clean pair of jeans and a few new tee shirts that weren’t in a pile of dirty laundry near his closet. Billy didn’t bother folding them before shoving them into his bag. Double checking to make sure he had a full package of cigarettes in the front pocket before closing the bag.

He shuffles around, grabbing an old pair of military boots he had kept after a run at military camp from his junior year of high school. Once the frayed laces were tied around his ankles, he grabs his jean jacket, pulling it onto his body while reaching for the bag.

He tosses it over his shoulder, picking up the map book and his car keys before flicking off the light of his bedroom, door slamming shut behind him while he walked quickly down the hallway and down the stairs.

“Billy?” Susan asks from the living room, Max curled up beside the coffee table to do her homework. 

He doesn’t respond to his step mother as he heads towards the door. 

“Billy, where are you going?” She asks, standing up to follow him to the front door.

Once more, he doesn’t respond. He opens the door, boots thunking against the wooden porch towards his car in the driveway.

“Are you going to be back to drive me to school?” Max calls from the window, watching him toss the bag into the car.

The look he shoots her, answers her question. So she retreats from the window to the phone on the kitchen wall to ask for a ride from Steve Harrington.

Susan calls once more from the front door, her hands shaking with the fear of telling Neil that he had left without a word. That she didn’t know where he was going or how long he   
would be gone. That she had let him disrespect her once again. 

The Camaro roars to life once Billy turns the keys in the ignition. He pushes the gears into reverse, stomping on the gas to push himself out of the driveway and swing out onto the back road that the Hargrove house was built on.

The drive was eighteen hours.

Eighteen hours of winding back roads and nearly empty highways. Trees varying in species flew past his windows, occasionally a cliff on his right would show off trickling streams down the face of stone that had been carved out for the road that wound around the cliff. 

Before entering the state of Maine, there were long stretches of farm land. Empty fields of harvested corn, cows dotting certain fields, horses trotting the perimeters of their confines. Every once in a while, he would pass a pumpkin farm that was preparing itself for Halloween.

Once he was in Maine, he payed more attention to the roads he took. It was coming in on the time where schools would be let out. The sun no longer at it’s highest peak in the sky and was making it’s slow descent into the horizon. 

The book rested in his lap, one finger staying on the route he was taking towards your home. Once he was on your street, he prowled down the road, eyeing the numbers on the houses until he came to yours. 

There was no car in the driveway, and he pulls in front of the garage. He takes the keys out of the ignition and slides out of the car, grabbing a cigarette from the cup holder. 

Billy leans against the hood of the car, lighting the smoke as he takes in the suburban home that was yours.

The house itself was a pale blue, stark white window sills and front door stood out against the blue. There was a faded white porch wrapping around the house. Grey roofing covering both the porch and house. 

There was a garden beside the walkway leading to the porch. Freshly weeded with slowly dying summer plants. It screamed your mother at him. She had been a landscape architect the last time he spoke to you. She had loved to make her gardens pretty. 

Billy was pulled out of his daze when another car pulls into the driveway, the top 40 hits playing loudly through the speakers. 

He turns his head, seeing five silhouettes sitting in the car. The front passenger door opens, and you step out of the hideous brown, dated car. 

Your hair was pulled up into a ponytail, a few strands framing your face. Your lips were a glossy pink and your eyes shone bright under the early autumn afternoon sun.   
You had a pale pink blouse tucked into high waisted jeans, the bottoms rolled up to show off the gold anklet, the little dolphin resting over your canvas shoes. 

Your head turns to him, hair swinging behind you as you close the car door. 

Your eyes were wide, lips slightly parted as you took in the dishevelled Californian. His mullet curled and sticking out behind him, clothes wrinkled from being in the car for so long. A cigarette dangling from his lean fingers. 

Once your eyes meet his, you know exactly who he is with no question. There was no room for doubt. 

“Billy?” You ask, a smirk growing on his tired face.

**Author's Note:**

> Find more of my writing and request something of your own at my tumblr @Rosalynbair


End file.
